Sunday 24th August - chocolate cake and going with the flow...

 First things first; Chocolate Cake

The recipe comes from Michael Barry, the TV 'Crafty Cook' from the 1980s, I think?

175g/6oz self-raising flour, 

4 heaped tablespoons cocoa powder, 

1 heaped teaspoon baking powder, 

100g/4oz caster sugar, 

1 dessert spoon black treacle, 

150ml/5 fl oz sunflower oil, 

150ml/5 fl oz milk, 

2 large eggs

Grease and line two 18 cm/7 inch sandwich tins - he lays great stress on the tin size.

Preheat oven to 160 C or Gas 3. I'm assuming this is before fan ovens were common, so I  reckon a fan oven temperature would be 150C

Put all the ingredients into a large bowl and mix with a wooden spoon, or use a food processor.

Bake for 45 mins. Remove from tins and cool on a rack.

His recipe uses this topping, which I've never tried. I'm sure it would be delicious; his recipes are very reliable;

Beat 350 ml/12 fl oz fromage frais into 150ml/5 fl oz double cream until thick. Spread one of the cakes with  4 tablespoons black cherry jam, followed by a third of the cream mixture. Carefully sandwich cakes together, spread the top with remaining cream mixture and use a fork to lift up peaks. 

He says this can be refrigerated for up to 24 hours before serving.  

I chose to use the tried and tested recipe which came with the my cooker back in the 1990s. We've been through at least one cooker since then but I've hung on to the battered remnants of the booklet!

Now, I made half quantities,  used a 6 inch square tin and REMEMBERED TO WRITE DOWN THE COOKING TIME AND TEMPERATURE I USED! I baked it for 40 minutes at 150C

It has been pronounced 'Delicious'; Best Beloved has just cut himself another chunk and is looking remarkably cheerful. 

Going with the flow

I'm slowly, as and when the mood takes me, reading Oliver Burkeman's Mediations for Mortals'. I'm finding it very thought-provoking and readable. It's interesting to consider his views from my own Christian perspective.

Here's a passage that I read yesterday;

To be human, according to this analogy, is to occupy a little one-person kayak, borne along on the river of time towards your inevitable yet unpredictable death. 

It’s a thrilling situation, but also an intensely vulnerable one: you’re at the mercy of the current, and all you can really do is to stay alert, steering as best you can, reacting as wisely and gracefully as possible to whatever arises from moment to moment.

The German philosopher Martin Heidegger described this state of affairs using the word Geworfenheit, or ‘thrownness’, a suitably awkward word for an awkward predicament: merely to come into existence is to find oneself thrown into a time and place you didn’t choose, with a personality you didn’t pick, and with your time flowing away beneath you, minute by minute, whether you like it or not.

A little further down the page he offers this quotation;

What the novelist E. L. Doctorow said about novel-writing applies to everything else, too: it’s ‘like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.'

I'm actually very encouraged by this. I've always had a huge difficulty with the whole 'handing my life over to Jesus' bit... Reading these passages is helping me consider that the whole business of 'taking control of your life' and so on is actually an illusion, a delusion even.

We're all already travelling along a river; 'all you can really do is to stay alert, steering as best you can, reacting as wisely and gracefully as possible to whatever arises from moment to moment.'

So, 'let go and let God', as they say! 

Music

I've had a couple of non-sleeping nights recently. I'm ready for bed now (8.30pm!) but it's a bit early yet. So I'll do what Mary Poppins says;